I'm Zach Zorich, a freelance journalist and contributing editor at Archaeology magazine. My background in archaeology has led me into writing about a variety of topics including ancient DNA studies, evolution, and the ways that ancient cultures survive and influence modern day life. I’ve also developed other interests including electric vehicle racing and synthetic biology. I specialize in stories about the people and the science that are revealing how human society and biology are changing in ways they never have before.

Before I became a journalist, I excavated archaeological sites in the Northeastern US and on paleolithic sites in England, France, Portugal, and Ukraine. Neanderthals and other ancient humans remain a special interest of mine

I began my journalism career as a fact-checker and reporter at Discover magazine in 2004. I was also an editor at Archaeology magazine until 2013 when I began freelancing. Since then, my articles have also appeared in Scientific American, Nautilus, Science, Nature, Hakai, Popular Science, and on the website of the New Yorker.

Building the pyramids of Egypt required the pharaohs to create an international trade network on a scale the world had never seen and laid the groundwork for centuries of Egyptian prosperity. This was the cover story (PDF) for the November 2015 issue of Scientific American.

This article, published in Nautilus magazine, seeks to answer a long-standing question in evolutionary biology, what course would life take if evolution could be re-started? It was named one of the Atlantic’s “Nearly 100 pieces of fantastic journalism” in 2014.

Archaeologists are learning practical lessons for coping with a new and fragile environment from the Vikings who settled Iceland. This story (PDF) for the March/April 2007 issue of Archaeology received an honorable mention in Best American Science and Nature Writing.